


The Slimmest Chance

by InterNutter



Category: Church (Short Film 2019)
Genre: AU, Canon-Typical Violence, Escape, Found Family, Gen, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 14:18:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 13,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23011261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterNutter/pseuds/InterNutter
Summary: If Sanga and Ashivon were younger when they met. If the old Executioner had had a lot more help than he had ever been used to... the fate of the world can sometimes hang on the smallest of odds.The Slimmest Chance.
Relationships: Ashivon & Old Executioner, Sanga & Ashivon, Sanga & Old Executioner
Comments: 11
Kudos: 28





	1. Something Old

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Toasty owns the universe and the animatics from which it springs. The characters and settings are familiar, but other things occur through my own warped lens.

He could hardly hear the bells, any more. The last blow to the head had done something to his left ear, and he preferred sleeping on his right side. He needed to work on changing that or they’d start beating him more often again. He moved carefully. The small furry animals the fangless kept for pest control complained, but their presence was reassuring. They scattered whenever the fangless came near.

Their company was preferable, all things considered. They were warm and affectionate and kept the mice out of the straw that passed for his bedding. So they shared fleas, but that was hardly the worst of his woes. The  _ worst _ of his woes were always the fangless, and what the bells meant.

He flicked his good ear. That was the tune for sacrifice day. There had been more of them lately. He hardly got to rest any more. Either that, or he was losing days in the fog that was taking over his mind. What was left of his mind.

The small animals helped. Their presence was enough to give him company, to keep his mind stable. To give him some hope, like the newest nest of tiny, squeaking lumps that must have been birthed in the night, in the shelter of the cracked stone and under the pile of straw, like they usually were.

“Eko’a,” he cooed. One of the few words of his kind that he remembered, and even then, it seemed like a badly-remembered dream. He clung to it anyway. He had so little of what once was left, any more. “Suah eko’a…” They were soft, and fragile, and he hardly dared touch them, but generations like them had been born in that little nook. Mother and grandmother alike had benefited from his protection. Any other creature coming near these babies would get a swift claw through their flesh and likely an attempt to bite the offending digit off. These creatures knew him, and accepted him as one of their own.

They had, through the years, shown him more care and affection than the fangless had.

He eased himself out from the cluster of others who had shared their warmth with him. Some yowled, some ran off, some merely resumed their position, this time on the straw he had just vacated. Many decided that this was the time to groom themselves.

He did what he could to loosen his stiff joints and clean himself before the fangless came for him. They would be coming for him very soon. He would have blood on his hands once again. He would have water thrown roughly at him at the end of his… efforts… but that was nothing like being clean going in.

He dimly remembered bathing in warm water. Someone much bigger than him had made sure he did it properly. He dimly remembered caring hands and a stiff brush… What he had now was buckets of water as they sat and the rough tongues of the savage little beasts that the fangless kept here.

The little creatures sensed the approach of the fangless before he ever could. Those that couldn’t scatter hid in nooks and crannies in the stones. He took his position. Kneeling on the floor, hands behind his back. Waiting for the itching burn of the restraints. Waiting for the guiding hand at his elbow to take him from here up to the holding cage before they opened the big door to the worst place in the world.

His right knee pained him more than usual, today. His limp was not as feigned as he usually made it. The fangless chattered amongst themselves in their strange tongue. He was forbidden to use their words. The last sacrifice had hit his knee in such a way as to make walking difficult even after a rest. He tried to be fast, because being slow got himself even more pain from the fangless who allegedly looked after him. Yet he could tell they were slowing down for him.

Every day, the black faded from his fur. Every day, there was more grey. Every day, the paler fur on his body was just a little bit more white.

Every day, he grew older. Here in this hell.

Once in the holding cage, the bonds faded from his arms. He tried to stretch himself. To loosen the grinding, painful joints before the other door opened and sent him out to… to do what they wanted him to do.

The music of the bells stopped, and for a while, all he could hear were the occasional calls of birds in the yard beyond his cage. He used to enjoy seeing the plants and the sky for a pace of time. Now there wasn’t even a moment to spend on idle joy. He had to be ready.

The chanting had begun. Two words of the fangless that he had learned they used for his name. “Vox Mons! Vox Mons! Vox Mons,” they shouted. Hundreds of them. More than hundreds. He couldn’t remember the words for larger numbers. Not any more.

He couldn’t remember his name, only that the words the fangless shouted was not his name.  _ I am not Vox Mons, _ he told himself.  _ I am… I am… _ He had had a name once. Too many years ago. He had had a family. He had had parents, and a home, and people all around him who were like him. He had… a name… it was not there any more. He was not who he had once been, any more.

He had asked himself ‘what am I’ so often that that might as well serve as his name.  _ I am Hratsek. I am not a monster. _

The low ring of the sacrifice bell sounded, and he got as ready as he could be. The crowd roared like a dangerous beast as he limped out onto the sands, underneath the symbol that seemed to follow him everywhere.

_ That, too, had meant something once… a long time ago. _

A circle with horns, one horn blending with a line drawn diagonally through the circle. The symbol of these people. The symbol of his captivity. The symbol of blood and murder and cheering so loud it hurt even his clouded ears.

“Vox! Mons! Vox! Mons! Vox! Mons!”

He came to a halt a rough third of the way between the cage door and the other door. They didn’t like him going right up to the other door. Practice and experimentation in his youth dictated how far onto the sands he could travel. At least in the beginning.

The other door opened, and one of the fangless came out onto the sands. Hratsek had stopped paying attention to what they were, only to what weapon they held. That was not the important bit.

Young, old, plump, thin, able or not… he was made to kill them all. They could fight with the weapon in their hands or, more often than not, scream and blubber and try to escape.

He would kill them all. Methodically. Routinely. Dispassionately. Effectively. Almost negligently. The skin of their necks parted like water before his swiping claws.

Some fought. All died. He protected his bad knee from further attacks, dropping the bodies onto the sand as they died. The other fangless would drag the bodies away and he would face the next sacrifice. Just as it had always been for almost as long as he could remember.

_ Sometimes, after the sacrifices, he would curl up wherever they left him and dream of green fields and flowers… _

He lost count of the number of fangless he killed. He hadn’t bothered to count for years. Decades. He measured this brutality by watching the progress of shadows on the sands. He would be covered in blood by the end of it. The fangless seemed to like it that way.

He didn’t even mind when the fangless sacrifices cut him. They only ever got one cut in. One more amongst hundreds. Tens of hundreds. Hundreds of hundreds. More even than that. More than the stars in the sky, perhaps.

He could never have counted that high. One by one, someone would heal them. One by one, the cuts that didn’t heal all the way grouped up on him. Most just pulled on his skin. Some cut away feeling. Some hindered his ability to move. Some, like the lucky blow to his bad knee, stopped him from running so fast or so far.

It was entirely possible that, one day, he would have too many scars to allow him to move.

What would they do with him then?

Another bell sounded, and the fangless began singing as the other furless in the arena harried him back towards the holding cage with their staves of light. He knew better than to risk touching those. They seared the flesh they touched as they burned him, so the agony was twice as excruciating for it. He never wanted to chance their touch.

Once sealed in the holding cage, he knelt again and waited for the burning itch of the bonds and the guide to the nook where they threw water at him until they could no longer detect the blood on his body.

There would be food and fresh water waiting in his space. In the dark. Safe until the next time the bells rang. Safe to wash  _ properly _ with one of the buckets of fresh water they had left for him. Safe to share the food they left him with the little animals who actually loved him.

He never could stomach  _ all _ of the nastiness they called food.

The little creatures who loved him had no such qualms, and would lick his hands clean from the horrible sauce, purring all the time.

He would never groom them like they groomed him. He was not an animal. He would comb his claws carefully through their fur, enjoying their softness and finding peace in plucking the burrs and knots from their fur. He eased into sleep as he watched the new babies with their mother. Their presence brought him hope.

The bells woke him, but not more than the sudden absence of a warm, furry, living blanket. Some of them scratched him by accident on their way to their secret places. It hurt to move enough to be ready for the furless. He growled and grimaced as they hauled him upright.

It hurt to walk.

Then he saw the  _ other _ Intseh. Also just barely.

“Child…”

It was the words. Words he hadn’t heard for the better part of a lifetime.

_ “What is this place? Who are you? What is this place? Why are they doing that?” _

He barely understood him, he was so fast. He only knew one word.  _ “Child… Small child…” _

One of the fangless caught him on his deaf ear with their burning staff. For a moment, the harsh fangless yelling was overwhelmed by the whining chime in his head. The first thing he heard was the little one’s screaming and crying. Only after that could he discern the orders for him to walk.

They had a baby.

They  _ had _ a  _ baby. _

Terror gripped his heart.

They had taken a new Intseh. A tiny little child.

He had fought so long and so hard to protect all the children from his fate. Hratsek had done whatever they wanted. Yet they  _ still _ took a child.

They expected him to die.

Well.

He would make them spend a long, long time in their expectations.


	2. Something New

So far, the only thing convincing him that this was not a terrible nightmare was that neither of his parents had woken him up. As he remembered, he had been up too late reading against Cheva’s orders, whispering the words to himself as he read  _ The Little Blue Bunny _ for the infinitieth time.

The light erupted all around him. It hurt and burned and it burned his book into less than ash. His clothes were burning. The bed charred underneath him.

“CHEFA!”

Chefa was awake in instants and reaching for him.

Ashivon had time enough to watch his mother burn herself on the cage of light around him, and then the world he knew, the book he’d been reading, and the clothes he had once worn vanished.

He felt like he was tumbled around like pebbles in a jar, and then… He was in the middle of a weird symbol, naked, and surrounded by weird creatures like he’d never seen before in his life. Ashivon huddled up, covering his rude bits as much as he could while he cried.

“I want my mama,” he cried. “Who are you? Where am I? What is this? Where are my clothes? What happened to mama? I’m scared…”

One of the strangers threw him a pair of pants and a sash. Ashivon scrambled into them as fast as he could while still trying to not show anyone the rude parts in the process.

“You will follow, young one,” said one of the strangers. “You will be safe.”

“Safe from what? What happened? Where am I?”

“You will follow, young one. You will be safe.”

“Is that all you can say?”

“You will follow, young one. You will be safe.”

Ashivon sniffled and figured that they weren’t hurting him, so it had to be all right. As he padded closer to the speaker, another one followed up from behind. They all wore white gloves and weird red robes.

No matter what he said, they only had one response.

“C’n you tell mama and papa I’m very sorry an’ I’ll never read past bedtime again…?”

“You will follow, young one. You will be safe.”

It was dark and scary and any light was provided by fire. The hallways were made of cold stone. “Don’t you know how to make light orbs?”

“You will follow, young one. You will be safe.”

“Yuh yuh yuhyuh, yuh yuh,” Ashivon mocked. They clearly could not understand him. “Yuh yuh yuh yuh.”

“You will follow, young one…”

Ashivon groaned. The fear was fading and leaving unadulterated confusion in its place. They lead him through twists and turns and down some stairs and finally, into a place with three stone walls and one made out of iron sticks. They pushed him inside and shut the metal door behind him.

There was a small window close to the ceiling. There was a sack that could do as a bed. There was a blanket. There was a covered pit that stank worse than manure. The metal bars wouldn’t let him slip through. The door would not open.

He curled up on the sack and wrapped the blanket around himself. Ashivon didn’t know what to do. The fangless people didn’t know Intsehli. He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know what to do.

Lost for anything else to do, Ashivon rocked in place and wept.

The dark of the night faded into daylight, and Ashivon ran out of tears to shed or sobs to utter. At least the sunshine was warm, but there wasn’t enough of it on the floor. The little window had a larger ledge beneath it. Enough for him to sit on and maybe peer out of the little window.

It was so cold, and he was about ready to do anything to be warm. It took him a couple of goes, but he made it up there and saw…

Neglected, weedy stretches of branches, leafless tree limbs. Tall stems of grass. Vast stretches of dry, neglected dirt.

A little bird landed there, and pecked at the soil with little sign of reward. Birds flew here. Almost like some of the little birds he’d known from home.

The bird and the comfort its presence bought flew away. Ashivon shrank into the shadows, watching in trepidation as another fangless entered the small space. This one wore something that was mostly white, and they were crying too.

The stranger huddled up near his window, balled up in misery like Ashivon had been just a few moments before.

The big ones in red hadn’t hurt him, they were just… really weird. Therefore, he reached out to pat the fangless one’s arm. “Hush hush,” he cooed. “Hush hush…”

It worked. The fangless calmed down. Then startled at his hand. They bent to look inside the window. “Quid? Non Vox Mons...” A strange, clawless hand patted him back. “A puer?”

He didn’t understand a word of it. “What?”

“Quid?”

Maybe they were too different. Maybe it was hopeless. He had to at least try. He let the fangless see him tapping his chest. “Ashivon. Ash ee von. Ashivon.”

“Ash ih bon?”

Close enough. He nodded, and tapped her hand.

“Sanga,” said Sanga. “San ga. Sanga.”

“Sahnkah?”

The fangless must have allowed the same compromise. But they gasped and scurried out of view.

“Child...” said another voice. Speaking Intsehli! Ashivon whirled in his place. There was a greying elder, held by some fangless ones. He had his arms behind his back.

“What is this place? Who are you? What is this place? Why are they doing that?”

“Child,” said the elder. “Small… child…”

A fangless one with a glowing staff  _ hit _ the elder in the head. He reeled and shook. The fangless yelled and yelled. Ashivon screamed and wailed.

These fangless were bad news!

Except… Sahnkah had been kind?

Maybe. Maybe she didn’t know how to be mean?

Ashivon whimpered and hid in a corner. He’d rather be cold than hit. He watched as the fangless took the elder away.

“Ashihbon?” A white-sleeved arm reached through the window, feeling around. “Ashihbon?” They… sounded upset.

Ashivon took the risk and hopped back up into the windowsill. Gave Sahnkah as much comfort as they gave him. He had at least one person willing to try to understand him. She -he learned Sahnkah was a she- had someone who would listen to her and treat her gently.


	3. Something Useless

Her name was Sanga, she was five years old, and she had no family. She could read and write, but just barely. She could not sing, she could not sew, she could not remember more than three instructions in a row. She wasn’t pretty, she wasn’t talented, and she wasn’t especially good at remembering anything at all.

This was, for example, the third time she had forgotten what her teacher had sent her for, today. The third time she had got a whipping for winding up in the wrong place. This was also the first time she decided to hide from the world and let herself cry rather than getting another whipping for apparently unnecessary crying.

Which was why she squirmed under the hole in the board fence to take a minute or fifteen to catch her breath and quell her tears. She was five years old, and very, very tired of being stupid and useless. She had had more than enough of being stupid and useless for one day, and it was only halfway through the morning.

She was stupid and useless and didn’t do a single thing to earn her evening gruel no matter how hard she worked at it. She didn’t have a single friend and everyone was bigger than her and everyone bigger than her hit her. Even the rare, smaller children would throw things at her.

Somewhere in the middle of her weeping, someone’s gentle hand started petting her. She had thought that -first- nobody in the whole world could be that kind, and of course that nobody in the world could be in this abandoned, weed-strewn tiny patch of a courtyard.

She was five years old, and she couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched her with kindness. It felt strange but nice. Nicely strange.

“Sho,” whispered a voice. A small voice much like her own. “Sho, sho. Sho sho…”

The hand was jet black, and had claws. Just like the big monster, Thunder Mountain. Yet it was also kind, and small. Almost the same size as her own hand. “What? You’re not Thunder Mountain.” The creature was very small. Too small to be a grown demon. “A baby?” Maybe he didn’t know how to be dangerous yet.

“Hra?” said the little demon in the shadows.

“What?”

The little demon pointed to his chest. “Ashivon. Ash ee von. Ashivon.”

She tried it and instantly got it wrong. “Ash ih bon?”

He very generously nodded for her.  _ Not _ tearing her apart for being bad.

She got it. Ashihbon was his name. “Sanga,” she said. “San ga. Sanga.”

“Sankha?”

Well. If he could be kind to her, she could be kind back. She nodded and smiled.

“Evo...:” said a distant voice in the darkness. “Suah evo…”

People were yelling so Sanga rolled away from the little window near the ground. She finished up under a prickle bush but that was a small pain compared to getting a whipping for not performing her duties. She cowered where she was, watching for any approaching angry nuns. It took a long, long time. A long time measured in anxious heartbeats, but not by the shadows’ progress along the ground.

Then she figured enough time had passed and therefore crawled towards the window, still on edge for approaching grownups. Ashibon was alone in the dark and  _ surrounded _ by grownups just minutes before.

She couldn’t see inside the darkness. Only that her first and potentially only friend was not there any more. Sanga felt around inside, hoping for the best. “Ashihbon? Ashihbon?”

For a heart-stopping moment, nothing, and then he leaped up like a cat hopping over a fence. He reached through the bars to pet her just as she petted him. In just a few, simple touches, the world became a kinder place.

They managed to begin some understanding. Ashihbon wanted to go home. He had a family and a home and a place to be. Sanga wanted to go there with him. It all sounded so nice.

The grownups gave Ashihbon some food and Sanga figured it was time and past time to return in shame to the class and take the whipping she was overdue for.

When she emerged from the secret garden the other children were playing in a dusty field that all the children tended to play in. Sanga idly picked up a stick and played at writing in the dirt. Hoping that nobody would notice she was there. One more small figure in amongst a host of small figures.

Unfortunately, five of them noticed. The biggest, nastiest pack of meanies that Sanga knew. She couldn’t go running to a grownup. They were more likely to whip her for her sins.

She had a stick. She could write after a fashion.

Quickly, she drew a circle around herself in the dirt. Added one line through it and a little further beyond it. Added a much shorter line, making it a symbol of Divinity.

She tried her utmost to sound authoritarian and righteous, quoting what little she could remember of the holy script. “Go ye hence from this place, O agents of evil! The power of the Saint forbids you from delivering harm to the innocent!” She felt it all in her heart and soul. The anger, the righteousness, the absolute pure need…

Then something…

_ Weird. _

Happened.

The Divinity symbol below her feet glowed.  _ She _ glowed. Her whole soul felt like it was lit up from within with light and song and she felt lifted up from the ground. Sanga was suddenly looking down on this meanie crew and they were looking…

They were looking like toddlers about to wet themselves in fright.

“The Saint commands us to scourge evil from the face of the world!” A whip she knew well from her times on the pennance frame appeared in each hand. A whippy cat o’ nine-tails with long, long threads of perdition.

Her hands moved of their own accord, it seemed. Each lash scored a meanie and sent them running. Only the yelling of the adults made her afraid enough for the light to fade away from her. The air came out of her in one explosive ‘hoof’ noise as she hit the dirt.

She felt weak and fragile as one of the nuns scooped her up.

Sanga closed her eyes as people around her started babbling about miracles and the gift of the Saint.

“...pls don’ whip me,” she managed. Everything felt worse than after climbing out from swimming in the river for hours. “...’m s’rry ‘m sleepy… di’n mean it…”

For the first time in memory, Sanga felt Sister Crus patting her back and holding her close against her. In another moment, she floated in the dark.

When she woke again, people were tattooing her body. There was a Divinity symbol on her chest and bands growing across her wrists. It hurt. She whimpered, and Sister Crus drifted into her view. Her strong hands held Sanga down. “Hush now,” she cooed. “You are blessed, child. You are blessed with the strength of the Saint.”

“...hurts,” Sanga whimpered.

“I know, love. I know. The pain will be over, soon. Once it is done? You may be the mightiest amongst the soldiers of the Divine Light.”

Sanga almost didn’t believe it, but she had no reason to disbelieve Sister Crus, who knew everything. “...’m no’ usel’ss no mo’?”

“My dear child,” said Sister Crus, who had never,  _ ever, _ called Sanga anything like that. “Your light, hidden under a basket, has been  _ found.” _

She would never be useless again.


	4. Something True

His world was changing around him. He had the baby to worry about, and his healer had a new apprentice. Tiny, even for the fangless children. Already marked with the sigil of the fangless and the bands and bars of a warrior. This little one stank of the healing salve that meant they had been freshly marked.

They were slightly smaller than the baby he was trying to protect.

He had never known children could be that small.

Something shocking happened.

The little fangless said, “Calm. Sanga fix," in words he knew.

Two of those three words were in a passable impersonation of the baby.

The older one with the little one startled, and then the light flowed from the child and towards him. He felt… warm. He felt… eased.

The deafness in his ear flowed away with a bubbling gurgle. An ache in his once-severed tail felt more like long-lost pleasure than pain. Aches and pains seared away under the onslaught. His vision, once full of smoke and blurs, cleared and sharpened. His lungs cleared. His snarled digestion felt like it was untangling. His snagged and twanging muscles seemed to snap. Joints loosened.

As the child fell to the floor in a torpor, he realised that he felt better than he had in years. A soft rustle around his ears and shoulders startled him, as did a drift over his eyes.

His…  _ hair _ had grown?

Then his stomach snarled in a vicious hunger.

Tonight, the little creatures that kept him company might actually go hungry.

The tiny little child in front of him was going to learn to be callous and cruel and keep him alive and the tiny little child in the other cell would be kept in reserve and made to kill and...

There was only one Intseh who this child could have learned from and…

And his bonds were no longer holding him!

He struck before the rest of the fangless could react, slashing the throats of his captors and then snatching up the helpful little fangless. In a handful of strides, he was ripping the door off of the baby’s cell.

“Small child! Small dear-child!”

“Sahnkah!”

The little baby boy ran right into his arms. Clung to his back as Hratsek carefully cradled the fangless child in his less-useful arm. He was  _ more _ than a match for the disorganised groups that stood against him. More than a match for any of them now that he was back to something approaching his prime.

They had trained him to be dangerous. Now he was striking out at the truly guilty. All with the singular goal of getting away from this place of torment.

His knees no longer creaked! He could run!

His ears no longer muted every sound! He could hear them approaching!

His lungs no longer wheezed! He could keep this up for hours without needing a rest!

For the first time in memory, the bells that ruled his life were panicked. It was  _ glorious. _ He bounced down a steep hill, barely keeping the children with him.

He was free! He could see in the dark while the fangless needed fire to see anything. He could get away while they were still stumbling about and searching for solutions.

But… just in case… he kept moving until he couldn’t hear the bells any more. Until his old knees creaked again and his muscles flagged and any attempt at running was no longer possible. Only then did he seek out shelter where he and the babies would be safe.

His name, for want of anything better, was Hratsek. 

He was old, and trained to be a monster.

He, who was once sick, was well.

He, who had once killed, had saved two lives.

He, who was once hopeless, had hope.

The baby on his back crawled down to tend to the baby in his arms. The fangless baby who was still asleep.

_ “What happened?” _ said the baby boy.  _ “Who are you?” _

He didn’t really know either. “Hratsek,” he said. Awkwardly. The words of his people didn’t fit well in his mouth any more. “Monster. Vox Mons.”

“Tsahvo,” said the little boy. He tapped his chest. “Ashivon.” He tapped the fangless baby. “Sahnkah.”

“Suah evo’a,” he said.  _ “Little children.” _ There was another word. A question. “Hratsek… Chevo?”

“Hratsek… Tsahvo,” Ashivon insisted. “Sahnkah…  _ friend,” _ he said. “Mivahtsah.”

_ “Little children. Baby.” _ After a pause, he added,  _ “Mine.” _

Ashivon seemed to give up at that point and combed through Hratsek’s new hair with his fingers, braiding strands of it together so they were out of his eyes.

His name was Hratsek.

He was free.

He had two babies now.

And he was lost with no idea how to get them to safety.


	5. Into the Unfamiliar

She had been asleep for a long time. Sanga could sense that much, but there were no bells to tell her how late it was. There was nobody yelling, either. That had to mean she’d been sick. Her arms itched and something big was purring softly. She was warm and dry and her arms itched and they’d beat her for scratching since the tattoos were so special.

Her hand flexed against fur and she temporarily forgot about the itching. It felt like one of Divinity’s big old feral toms or queens, but none of them had ever gone near a child, sleeping or not. Sanga had only touched one that was too old and too tired to run away. Once.

She remembered…

The gigantic form of Thunder Mountain, his greying, scarred face twisted in shock and sorrow. He’d been hurt. He was hurting. Blood and old injuries and just plain old age alike.

She remembered…

Sister Fibia telling her about how teams of healers made Thunder Mountain’s injuries better with the Divine Magic.

Sanga, overfull with excitement at being actually useful, shouted, “I CAN DO THAT!”

Sister Fibia said ‘no’, but Sanga was paying more attention to poor old Thunder Mountain. He didn’t like yelling either. She switched to Intsehli.  _ “Calm. Sanga fix.” _

That might have frightened him more than the yelling, but it was already too late. The light and song filled her up from tip to toe and flowed out.

‘Fix’ was such a generic word.

Sanga wanted to make it  _ all _ better. So she did that.

She opened herself up to the Divine, which was so much easier with the tattoos in place. She probably poured way more into Thunder Mountain than she thought she had. She definitely used more than she should.

Sister Fibia was overdue in telling Sanga she’d overdone it.

Sanga could hear her exasperated echo inside her head.  _ Your enthusiasm is a merit, dear child, but you simply must temper it and ration your resources so you last the day. _

Her bed was lumpy in weird ways. Sanga tried to shift herself and her bed… flexed.

When she opened her eyes, she wasn’t in Divinity. The big feral cat was actually Thunder Mountain, holding her in his arms, and… Ashivon was trying to cook fish on a rock.

A whole fish. On a rock. By a fire that was barely going at all. It was more smoke than flame.

She had a duty to help, but… Her limbs felt like lead.

“No,” she said, “Ashivon you got it wrong…” What were the Intsehli words?  _ “No good. Wanting more fire…” _

Her attempts at squirming roused Thunder Mountain. The Beast of Ages. The Saint’s Punishing Hand. The Chastiser. The Creature Born of the Sin and Hatred Within the World.

...who made a sort of “mrrrp?” noise like a ridiculously large cat and gently petted her with the backs of his claws.

“Suah evo…”

Saint’s  _ piss, _ she must have done something very, very wrong. Had the power of the divine light turned the biggest, meanest monster in Divinity into… a kitten?

He seemed to be struggling with a word. Something he remembered from long ago but didn’t remember that very well. “D… dorrr… Sleep? Evo sleep?”

Sanga managed to tap her chest. “Sanga,” she said. “Sanga  _ eat good food?” _ She pointed to the fish.  _ “Ashivon making bad food.” _

“A’i!”

Sanga attempted to indicate through signs, spare words, and pointing, that the fish on the rock was so raw that it could plausibly still swim away. That, and it was also a poisonous fish.

Thunder Mountain seemed very upset about this.

It took even longer, with pointing, spare words, and Thunder Mountain’s help, to do everything that should be done. She was really too wrung out to stand, so she didn’t mind Thunder Mountain carrying her around like a poppet. It felt… nice… to be held like that.

It was kind of fun to help with wood gathering, herb gathering, and food-gathering. Ashivon could snatch fish out of the river and, at Sanga’s direction, so could Thunder Mountain. It was the giant monster’s claws that helped her split open the fish and remove the guts. Ashivon wasn’t happy about descaling, but Sanga didn’t know how to make the tool they had to do this in the Divinity kitchens. At least the river water was clean enough to wash in.

Making a fire big enough to cook on was one thing. Skewering bits with clean splinters was a little educational, since some splinters were too weak to hold the fish, herbs, and wild vegetables all at once.

She knew she had it right when both of her friends started licking their lips at the smell. She could feel her own stomach start to realise that it was empty at the smell too.

This was more than she was ever allowed to eat, even on feast days.

Sanga showed them both how to blow on the hot food. She’d never heard of the demon feeders getting burns, so that had to mean that the demons never got hot food. She was sat on Thunder Mountain’s lap like a baby, and had Ashivon at her side and both of them were purring like a distant storm, only way friendlier.

Ashivon took his fill, but Thunder Mountain kept offering her tidbits. “Suah eva,” he’d say, and then make a noise remarkably like a cat begging at the kitchens.

Ashivon said, “Tsahvo saying… Sahnkah no eat much.”

Sanga laughed. “Sanga eat many much. Big much,” she gestured with her hands. She felt stronger with a little food. She still felt a little hungry, but that was right and proper.

“Mrrow? Suah eva? Mrrrrow?” he drew a circle in the air near Sanga's middle, and imitated a growl.

Ashivon smirked. “Tsahvo saying… Sahnkah want eat.”

He wouldn’t stop until she was full, Sanga guessed. What that had to do with cats made her wonder a little.

“Tsahvo being name? Real name? She turned to gently tap Thunder Mountain on his chest. “Tsahvo?”

One shoulder -fluffier than it had been the last time she was awake- raised and lowered. “Hratsek. Tsahvo?” he shook his head. “Monster.” He patted her head and Ashivon’s and added, “Nah eva’a.”

“Tsahvo saying… Sahnkah, Ashivon… being him babies.”

Okay. Maybe it was a good thing that she had no idea how to get back to the streets of Divinity. Whatever she had done to Thunder Mountain had likely ruined him for the arena.

She was in so...  _ So. _ Much. Trouble.

Full to satisfaction and drowsing once more, she watched Ashivon draw a picture. Some words she knew. Mother. Father. House? No. Building. It was the zigzag above them all that caught her attention. Those looked… like  _ mountains. _

Sanga pointed to the zigzag in Ashivon’s drawing, and pointed to the mountains over in the distance, poking up over the treetops. They were even more or less the same shape, even if it was flipped around.

She had to explain by tearing a leaf into a similar shape. “Ashivon mountain,” she turned the leaf over. “Sanga mountain.”

They had a direction to go. By good fortune and the blessings of the Saint, that direction was further and further away from her getting into trouble.

She could only hope it would stay that way.


	6. Finding a Gentle Touch

Her name was Legumani, and she was kind. She had left them some meals before she calmly sat on her back stoop to say ‘hello’ in several languages. Many of them, Hratsek didn’t know. He could recognise the shape of Intsehli more than understand it, the same with Nital. More often than not, his attempts at saying it were nothing more than babbling like an infant.

He  _ thought _ he said, “You no hurt little children?” but her frown told him he’d got it wrong. He cradled Sanga protectively, his gigantic hand keeping her entire head sheltered from harm.

Then Ashivon stepped out from behind his leg and translated. First in Nital, then in Intsehli.

He had definitely got it wrong. Unfortunately, he could not easily tell where or how he’d got it wrong.

The fangless who was still sitting on the stoop spoke in Intsehli, then Nital.  _ “I will not hurt any of you. Come in, get warm. It gets cold at night. I have milk for the children.” _

Ashivon took his free hand and lead him inside… not a cage. He could open the doors and go outside when he wanted. Hratsek even made sure of this five times before he settled in a crouch by the table.

There was, as promised, milk for the children. It came from one of the farm animals and Sanga gulped it down gratefully. Ashivon was a little more cautious and proclaimed it ‘tasted funny’. Sanga attempted to explain what animal it came from, but her words were too fast. They often were. She eventually surrendered by miming horns with her fingers and bleating in imitation of the slot-eyed mountain meat animals he had sometimes hunted on their way here.

Hratsek tried to learn the word ‘goat’ in either tongue, but could feel it going wrong. “Koat? Varshego? Sango? Sankoat?”

No matter what he tried, he had the children in hysterics. Legumani soothed his agitated temper and introduced him to warm, aromatic tea. Then she had to stop Sahnkah, the little fangless ball of energy and chaos, from helping wherever she knew how. Sahnkah, he had learned since her first healing surge, had two ways of encountering the world. Faster than a manic fly, or unconscious.

She didn’t know  _ how _ to take her time, nor do just one thing, and often couldn’t hold a task in her head for ten heartbeats. There were too many times when she would stop what she’d been doing at that moment and said,  _ “Wait. Where did I start?” _ only to repeat the entire cycle all over again.

Anyone not invested as he was in her continued health and happiness might be prepared to throttle her by the third time that happened in a day. Not Hratsek. Half his memory was fog at the best of times, and some of those memories wandered into distant pasts that he was certain were dreams. He would gently remind her of what needed to be done, or Ashivon would remind them both because both he and she much preferred to have his copious hair braided and restrained.

As long as they were far, far from the fangless and the city with the symbol on Sahnkah’s chest, little else mattered. He already had the important things. Two children, safe from fangless harms. Food and shelter and clean water seemed to come naturally.

“Nah efafa’a,” he reminded himself.  _ My beloved children. _

Ashivon reluctantly accepted Hratsek’s gentle affection where Sahnkah just dived in. For all that they both called him  _ Tsahvo Hratsek, _ now, he was still awkward with Ashivon. It was easy to be gentle for Sahnkah. She soaked it up like a dry cloth.

Ashivon was… a little more cautious, but at least understood that Hratsek was actively  _ trying _ to be kind. He grudgingly accepted Hratsek’s parental attentions as if he knew that the old monster was the only safety available. He got along better with Sahnkah than Hratsek.

The two children talked better than he did, quickly evolving a mix of words from both tongues, and then dumbing it down for their Tsahvo. He didn’t mind. Too many words were lost to him, now.

Action, on the other hand… action he could  _ well _ understand. Any heavy task that Legumani had for him, he was eager to do. Things from tall shelving or things up on high branches beyond Legumani’s usual reach, they were his domain.

As the snow blocked them in, for the first time in his memory, someone worried that he might feel the cold. Sanga could soothe away his bad dreams with her warm light, but she couldn’t warm his whole body with it. She kept trying all the time, poor little scrap. Right up until the moment Legumani showed her what she’d been working on.

Clothes.

Not just the pants of an Executioner, not the garb of a fighting slave, but a proper coat, and an insulating kirtle to go over his legs, and strange wrappings for his hocks. Ashivon got a coat and hock-wrappings, too.

There were hats as well. A round one for Sahnkah, knitted from the wool of the Sankoat’a, and one large and one small creation with flaps and buttons and pockets that Sahnka thought was hilarious. Once worn properly, they allowed Intseh horns to poke through, and their ears to flip in or out of warming cover with the help of a nearby hand.

Sahnkah almost instantly took Hratsek’s off of him and used it like a mask, with the horn holes allowing her eyes to see. It took hours just to catch her and even longer to convince her that -yes- Tsahvo actually  _ did _ need to keep his head and his ears warm, no matter how much extra hair he had now.

They might have overdone it, since Sahnkah subsequently obsessed about making certain Tsahvo Hratsek had his hat. He always rewarded her with hugs or nuzzles, regardless. The child seemed to need them like any other being needed air.

Legumani had to convince him to let her walk, run, and play more often. It took weeks. Sahnkah never complained when Hratsek carried her around like a poppet. It seemed like she lifted her arms to be carried every time she saw him. This only worsened her capacity for whirlwinds of activity.

Legumani was wise, Hratsek understood that much. She taught Sahnkah a way to clear away his confusion, and she translated it for him when he was having trouble.

She used her light -sometimes, she glowed like a child-sized sun- to pat his hand or his forehead and then asked, “See five, Tsahvo.” And Ashivon would point out things that were there to help him. Then it was, “Hear four,” and, “Smell three,” and, “Feel two,” and finally, “Taste one.”

It helped, but as the snow was melting, Legumani had bad news.

_ “I saw people dressed in red,” _ she said,  _ “They had symbols like Sanga’s on their chests.” _

All three of them knew in a second that they were from the bad place. All three of them knew in a second that they had to pack up and move on.


	7. Finding Help

Ashivon picked up, and could code-switch between languages far more easily than either Sanga or Tsahvo Hratsek could. Both of them tended to revert to  _ Hratsekian, _ a tangled mash of Nital, Intsehli, and Hratsek’s own emotive gibberish and hand-gestures that had somehow become words with their own meaning during their long journey. He had taken the role of translator, though he was certain that Sanga understood more than she let on.

Right now? She was jumping. Hopping from cobblestone to cobblestone and chanting something about broken bones of the enemy, meshed with an Intsehli skipping rhyme he had taught her. Sanga’s biggest value was in her ability to negotiate the best deals. She knew the worth of money and, try as she might, could not get Tsahvo Hratsek to begin to understand.

Ashivon was  _ certain _ that the people in this city were gaining amusement from watching a tiny fangless child fold coin into a giant Intseh’s claws like a grownup folding change into a toddler’s palm.

Hratsek, as the fangless were wont to say, was truly a gentle giant. Leave him alone for more than ten minutes, and he would have somehow found and befriended a cat.

This time, it was a ridiculously small fluff of a  _ kitten, _ as he crouched in a corner behind some racks of clothes. The little hunter was grappling excitedly with Tsahvo Hratsek’s fingers and the old man seemed to be enjoying himself.

“Small animal child,” he said. There were days when “small child” or “small animal” were the only sentences he knew in pure Intsehli.

Ashivon tried to encourage him to remember his home tongue. Not that it worked much. “Come on, Elder. You get special clothes, too. They have real underwear here.”

It took way too much time to teach Tsahvo Hratsek about underwear, including all the fine details of where and how to tie what. Followed shortly with why they were called  _ under _ wear. Ashivon knew, without having to ask anyone, that Sanga had found a way to get into trouble by the time they finally emerged with all their clothing reorganised.

The surprising part was that she had made some new friends, instead of some angry adult fangless who would then attempt to take Tsahvo Hratsek to task for not watching the girl.

“Is this little one yours?” said the one wearing… a scarf mask? “Because we’re going to adopt her.”

Sanga was holding hands with another fangless - a child who was taller than her, and  _ that _ fangless was holding hands with a taller, paler fangless grownup with short hair and a cynical smirk. “You two are far from home. Here to trade?”

They were, the three of them, family. Ashivon could see it in the way they stood together. The way they connected themselves with the confidence that the others would be there.

Sanga was looking halfway scared, as if wondering if these people were her new family now.

Tsahvo Hratsek lunged forwards, snatching Sanga up into his arms. “Small child,” he said. “Mine.” Then he switched to pure Hratsekian which held the soul of,  _ “You have your own baby, don’t steal this one!” _

Sanga clung to fistfulls of Hratsek’s multicoloured coat, whimpering a little.

Ashivon, the only one present who was actually in tune with events, sighed and very slowly brought his palm to his face.  _ “This is joke. Being funny,” _ he said in Hratsekian, because it was easier. In Intsehli, because these fangless spoke Intsehli, he said, “We are… lost. It’s a very long story. Elder Hratsek was…” was there even a term for what had happened to him? “Alone… for a very long time. Sahnkah helped us all on going back home. Do  _ you _ know where home is? We think it’s on the other side of these mountains?”

“Mine,” said Tsahvo Hratsek. “My babies. You no take. I make safe.”

...and this was one of his more coherent days… Ashivon reached out to hold the Elder’s tail. “Ashivon stay. Sahnkah stay. We are together.”

Scarf Mask turned to Short Hair and said something in another language. Her eyes - the only part of her that Ashivon could see - were warm and affectionate. Short Hair rolled her eyes and smiled.

It was Short Hair who spoke next. “All right. Yes. We know where your home is,  _ and _ we can take you there. How much can you afford?”

Oh crap. Tsahvo Hratsek had the coin pouch. He just handed the entire thing over.  _ “Dang it, Tsavoi!” _

Now he was holding his hand out. “Change?”

Short Hair and Scarf Mask exchanged looks. One muttered in Nital,  _ “We can’t  _ not _ adopt them…” _

Scarf Mask opened the pouch and her eyes went wide. She showed Short Hair, who also bugged her eyes wide. There was, Ashivon assumed, some soft swearing between them. 

The child in between them, said, “How the flying crap did the three of you get that much coin when he,” they pointed to Hratsek, “is this trusting with the coin purse?”

Ashivon indicated Sanga. “She’s good at arguing.” Then included Tsahvo Hratsek. “And he starts growling when he doesn’t get change.”

As if to prove his point, Tsahvo Hratsek started a low rumble deep in his chest that indicated that, if change was not coming, trouble soon would be. “Change…?” he rumbled.

Short hair picked out some coins with swift fingers, and Scarf Mask handed the pouch back. “We will help you,” said Scarf Mask. “I am Amiqa, this is my wife, Davi, and our son Rys.”

“Yo,” said Rys. “You three are…?”

“Hratsek,” said Tsahvo Hratsek, nodding because both hands were occupied with a sniffling Sanga.

“Ashivon,” said Ashivon, “and that’s Sahnkah in Tsahvo Hratsek’s arms.”

“My baby,” insisted Hratsek.

Ashivon shared a Look with Rys that communicated the agony of dealing with people who were far too old and just Stuck Like That.  _ I have to deal with this every day, _ it said,  _ you’re sure you can take it on for the journey? _

Rys’ returning look said,  _ Look at who  _ I _ have for parents. I can take it. _

Indeed, Ameqa and Davi were looking at each other like they were planning to create an entire collection of children. Just like… Just like Cheva and Chevo when they were plotting to make him a junior sibling…

Ashivon felt suddenly homesick for his parents being lovey-dovey with each other. Between one teary-eyed blink and the next, he was leaning on the other shoulder of Tsahvo Hratsek, and the old man was nuzzling and purring at him with worried urgency. He patted the old man’s ear and sighed, “I want to go home.”

“...my baby,” he sulked.

“We can make home happen,” said Davi. “We take you over the mountains, over the sea.”

“We know the way,” said Ameqa. “We will keep you safe.”

They stayed true to their word. All the way to the Devan-Intseh docks.


	8. Finding Home

Sanga rarely let go of Tsahvo Hratsek whenever she was upset. As they got closer to their destination, she got more and more afraid that Ashivon wouldn’t need her any more. He would have his family back. He would have his  _ home _ back. He would not need a weird little girl or a nice old monster who barely spoke anything.

She tried to feel his excitement at seeing his homeland. Tried to share his joy, but… there would be no more of that after they docked. Ashivon would run on to be home with his family and not want her or Hratsek any more.

Tsahvo Hratsek had learned a decent quarter of a calming song. He had never learned how it ended. The repetitious nature of it was soothing in its way, except… the feeling of impending doom had her seeking out his arms with more and more frequency.

She would wait. Wait until she was sure Ashivon didn’t want to be her friend any more. That was when she would gather the words to ask Ameqa and Davi and Rys if they wanted more family.

Buildings stood out against the hillside like jewels on a Bishop’s robe. Even this far out, she could tell it was prettier than any other place she had ever seen. No wonder Ashivon wanted to go home.

Hratsek said, “My baby,” between choruses and she appreciated it. No matter what happened, she had one person to care for her.

Sanga reached out to the hidden bundle of fluff inside Tsahvo Hratsek’s coat, where the one cat he’d been able to sneak on board without their guides’ notice. The boat had only taken most of the day to reach the docks, so they didn’t need to fret about a patch of sand. Yet.

Ashivon didn’t even wait for the boat to hitch up on the docks, he sprang off to meet… one Intseh who looked a lot like him but with longer and slimmer horns, and one who looked a lot like him but didn’t have horns at all.

Ashivon’s Cheva and Chevo. His parents. His mother and father.

...who had been waiting on the docks with a bunch of bags and packs, all wrapped up like they’d been planning a long journey.

_ Maybe a journey to look for their boy. _

Ashivon surprised the stuffing out of them as he leaped out, calling for them. Running up with open arms.

“...small child,” said Tsahvo Hratsek in a mournful voice. He stood, and Sanga had a better view.

Parents hugging child. Child hugging parents. Tears. Laughter.

_ She did not belong there. _

Maybe Tsahvo Hratsek could. Ashivon knew him, how to translate his shattered words. They wouldn’t need her at all.

Someone behind Tsahvo Hratsek said, “They need a helping hand.”

Ameqa appeared on the dock by Hratsek’s side. “Come on, grandfather. Let’s say hello.” She offered her hand.

Confused, as he often was, Hratsek followed her lead. Down onto the dock. All the way up to the re-united family.

“These two helped Ashivon come home,” said Ameqa.

Confusion from the grownups. Stares. The hornless one said, “Who are you, Elder?”

Hratsek always had trouble with answering that one. “Elder,” he echoed. “Hra? Hratsek. Lost… small child. Mine. My babies. Save. Save my babies.”

Sanga, still held fast in Hratsek’s arms, looked tearfully out over the family. “I don’t wanna be alone,” she told them. “Please tell me I can stay?”

Hratsek patted her hair and said, “My baby,” as if daring anyone to take her from him.

The one with horns made a decision. “You should all stay,” they said. “We need to hear  _ all _ of the story.”

Ashivon blurted, “Sanga’s my friend and she helped me and she doesn’t have a family of her own and Hratsek needs people ‘cause he’s kind’a broken and he needs the both of us and please help him?”

“We  _ really _ need to hear all of this story,” said the hornless one. “Of course you can all stay.”

Both grownups offered their arms.


	9. Finding Peace

It had been some months, and it seemed like the whole town was helping them. Hratsek still spoke more Hratsekian than Intsehli, but with Sanga always at his side, he had a ready translator. Everyone around them understood that the poor old fellow had been through hell and then some. Sanga was beginning to understand that the place she once called home had not been all that nice at all.

She was still prone to flinching if someone near her or over her raised their arm too fast. Those people always noticed and gently soothed her or petted her to help her feel better.

The cat, which had now a home with her and Hratsek, had had kittens. Squeaking little balls of fluff with pointy tails and wobbling walks. Sanga was delighted, showing them off to anyone who came calling. Exhilarated at the idea that Intseh were not at all like the older orphans, who killed kittens.

Life was good.

Hratsek enjoyed the peace, the chance for quiet. The serenity in wide open spaces. He would often find a field of flowers and just… sit, leaving Sanga to run around shrieking, picking flowers, or weaving garlands as she wished. He would wake to her settling a crown of blooms over his horns, or braiding interesting things into his hair.

Ashivon would join her in whatever shenanigans she felt like, that day. The time apart from his family had changed him, but never as badly as it had altered Hratsek from the standard Intseh model. This morning, he was explaining for the thirtieth time about the upcoming festival.

“So the fighters don’t actually fight. They dance. It’s like… like play-fighting.”

“But nobody bleeds, right?” said Sanga, intertwining dandelions into Hratsek’s hair as the old man dozed. “I don’t have to help anyone?”

“The council would prefer you didn’t,” said Ashivon. “They’re still trying to say magic isn’t real.”

“They’re silly,” said Sanga. She could make a lightstaff and light whips and, if she had a blackwood handle, an axe or a sword or a scythe or any blade she could picture in her mind. “Of course I can do magic. I heal people every day.”

Ashivon rolled his blue glowing eyes. “It’s something to do with established truths, I don’t know. The Council debates everything and decides nothing. Hey. Speaking of decisions, do you know if you or Hratsek are being Masks tonight?”

“He heard ‘guardian’ and wants us both to wear green. He looks good in flowers.”

Ashivon looked worried for an entire minute as he doubtlessly tried to picture Hratsek under a cascade of flowers. Then further alarm as he probably attempted to size Sanga up for a baby Guardian costume.

“The good news for you is you don’t have to wear a mask ‘cause of how you’re small,” he allowed. “Tsahvo Hratsek might have some trouble with a mask. He doesn’t like not seeing everything.”

There  _ had _ been the panic when some sleep gunk had obscured his vision, that one time. “I’ll stick close to him. He’ll be okay. I’ll make sure.”

Almost on cue, he woke up from his drowse and saw a chain of dandelions in one braid. “Time? Dance?” He reached out to run his claws carefully through Sanga’s hair.  _ “We party and guard all, yes?” _ he said in Hratsekian.

Sanga looked to Ashivon, who nodded. “You should probably get ready. All those flowers take time.”

“Will I know you?” she asked.

“I’m a belled hunter. I get to keep all the coins I can get.”

“See you after sundown.”

Hand in Hratsek’s hand, Sanga bounced all the way to their little home. It was big enough for Hratsek, and warm enough for his old joints, as well as having enough room for one growing human and an increasing number of cats.

She had added a small green poncho to her Guardian’s costume, and a bandolier of green paint bottles to refresh the dauber on her staff. It was her job, like Hratsek’s, to mark anyone who was being a meaner.  _ She _ was going to be the avenging angel of justice for sure. If not her, then Hratsek for sure. She did not have a mask, but she did have a flower crown and garlands of flower chains around her person and around her staff. When they emerged into the lantern-lit night, it was all colours and chaos.

Dancers in red. Dancers in blue. Dancers in yellow. Rare dancers in black who seemed to delight in scaring people… but not the people in green. Dancers in orange had their feet tied together in sort of hobbles and the people they marked were made to do silly things. Dancers in purple wore either coins or bells.

Children didn’t wear masks, but they could wear the colours and the paints, if they wanted to. A few tiny ones wore black and leaped out at people going, “Rar!” as they did so. It was more adorable than scary, but they were babies, so it was almost a duty to pretend to be scared.

One of the dancers in black wasn’t acting like an Intseh.

He wasn’t as tall as the grownups, and definitely not as wide.

The way he moved… bugged her.

There were three more like them. Blue. Orange. Red. All in full costume and stalking through the crowd like they were looking for a specific person or thing to mess with.

Sanga almost figured it out too late. It was their feet.

They were human feet… not  _ just _ human feet, but… Human feet in  _ Divinity _ shoes.

_ “Divinity! Divinity! Meaner meaner meaner!” _ Sanga cried out in Hratsekian, pointing out all four of them.

Full-body costumes flew off. People scattered. Ashivon’s parents scooped him up and tried to run away from the source of trouble. People were getting in other people’s way, and everyone was screaming and…

_ ...one of them was raising his hand like the handler in the arena… _

Sanga leaped forward, splashing the dauber on the end of her staff into their eyes. She knocked a blackwood handle out of another’s hand and quickly summoned a blade. Hratsek leaped at the one with the green over his eyes and Sanga struck at the legs of the men nearest her.

Three quick strikes from Hratsek, and the attacking humans were down and bleeding.

Sanga healed Hratsek first, since he was the one crying about what he’d just done.

Then they were all escorted away to a holding area, waiting for court.

Poor old Hratsek was frenetic. He never liked small spaces and he  _ really _ didn’t like small spaces that he wasn’t allowed to walk away from. His Hratsekian was especially jumbled, that night. Sanga sang for him and petted him to calm him down, and it was a long time before it worked.

She worried about Hratsek. She worried about the cat, who Hratsek called Miau, and the kittens, who Hratsek had all named Meu. She worried about Ashivon and his parents. She even worried about the Divinity people and what they might be doing to the good people of Devan-Intseh.

Sanga finally curled into a tight ball inside Hratsek’s lap, and sleep crept up on her. It didn’t stay long, since Hratsek moved to carry her. There were other people, some still with their festival paint on. Some with half their costumes on.

One, Sanga saw, was looking like they’d had too much wine the night before. He was one of the ones who said magic wasn’t real. Would he believe if Sanga cured his headache? Or was he going to throw them out for what had happened at the party?

There was an entire court. All the people of the Council had gathered at very short notice. One of them still had their sleeping braids in and was rumpled in their morning robe.

Ashivon was there, as were his parents. There were a small group of people Sanga recognised from the scene of the attack.

Ishorutsah was there, with the soft fluffy pillows that she used to help Hratsek achieve calm when he was disturbed. She greeted him with gentle pats and assurances that he was safe, that neither he nor ‘his babies’ were coming to harm. He took the pillow offered and started to pet it instead of Sanga, but Sanga wasn’t sure how much made it past his difficulty in understanding things when under pressure.

She kept patting his arm and adding little tickles of the light and song to help him feel better.  _ “Safe Hratsek, safe babies,” _ she cooed in Hratsekian.  _ “Safe Hratsek. Safe babies.” _

The Council waited patiently until he was at least relaxed and attentive. “Elder Hratsek… we only wish an explanation of the… upset… last night. Can you tell us, please, who were those people? Why were they acting to hurt you?”

What they got was… a pantomime play, narrated in pure Hratsekian and translated by Sanga and Ashivon. Not just the events of the previous night, but the ordeal he endured, with Sanga providing demonstrations on a statue with some help from the stolen blackwood handle.

“But magic isn’t--” protested one of the council.

“Shush,” ordered another.

He covered the fights in the arena, and remembered his old name, Vox Mons. Then the terror of seeing another Intseh in a cage. The knowledge that he was getting old, and his injuries were mounting up. Weighing him down. He described Sanga’s healing and the realisation that he could overpower his protectors.

_ “Run run run running. Make babies safe,” _ he concluded.  _ “Find new home. Best home. Want peace. Bad men come. We fight.” _

Ashivon added, “They want to use Intseh to kill their wicked for them. So they steal little ones and control them until they stop resisting.”

“They do make the Intseh fight every week,” added Sanga. “Once a day if there’s been a purge. If the  _ penitent…” _

“Worse human,” said Ashivon.

“If they fight and win? They become part of the army. To fight the outsiders. But the Intseh dies.”

Sanga crawled into Hratsek’s arms, hugging the old man to help reassure him once the listening audience erupted into hubbub.

“Now we know what is happening with the missing,” said a Council member. “We must decide on a course of action.”

“Stop them,” said one.

“End them,” said another.

“Take  _ their _ babies,” screamed an agonised parent in the audience. She had had her little boy go missing less than a week ago. He was even younger than Ashivon. “Make  _ them _ hurt!”

Some of the Council picked up staves and started rhythmically tapping the butts of their staves against the floor.

“War. War. War,” began the chant.

More and more of the Council took up the chant and their staves. “War. War. War!”

It was, Sanga would learn later, the first unanimous vote in the better part of a millennium.


	10. Ending Suffering

The Intseh had not gone to war for centuries. When they did, they agreed they had to. When they did, they hit hard, with everything they had to use. Weapons and armour described in ancient texts were built according to instructions, and the siege weaponry was tested on a stone island off the east shore. Armour was fitted. Ploughshares were forged into swords.

Sanga taught those who believed in magic what the symbols did, how to call the light and song. How to use it to make burning weapons.

Carrier boats’ skeletons raised from the docks like legends come to life. They would be taking every fighting body - angry parents, angry relatives of missing children, angry friends of Ashivon’s family, angry people who had heard Sanga’s stories and understood the pain poor old Hratsek had endured in order to still be alive and come to Devan-Intseh.

Divinity had stolen their babies for  _ centuries, _ and would not be stealing them for very much longer.

Those who had come to fight Hratsek had wanted to take Intseh back with them. They would be  _ getting _ Intseh… in a manner unexpected.

They had taken children.

They would be getting full-grown, armed and armoured, and above all  _ furious _ Intseh. Fuelled by righteous anger. Schooled in strategy and tactics. Taught arts long lost by a child who had not yet learned what she should not be able to do.

The Intseh never rushed headlong into anything. They planned. They strategised. They worked out  _ logistics. _ This was why, unlike the half-starved group of Divinity soldiers sent to collect Hratsek and whomever else they could grab, the Intseh forces would reach the walls of Divinity in full strength, in full health, and fully fed.

That was months away, yet.

“I’m coming,” said Sanga. “You need me. I know all about Divinity, I know how they think. I know how to disrupt the magics. I know how the streets go, where the little passages are… I remember lots of it.”

Hratsek, never out of view from Sanga, put his hand on her shoulder and said, “She is my baby. I protect her.” The latest regimen of treatments had worked minor miracles. He still spoke exclusively in small words, but he could at least speak well enough to be understood by other Intseh.

Not bad for an old man who had almost forgotten how to speak at all.

The others around her knew that they would have to take her from his cold, dead hands if they wanted to take her at all. Besides, they would eventually reason, he knew the under-tunnels intimately and would know exactly where an Intseh captive would be held.

“I’m coming too,” said Ashivon. “I remember the way we went to come home, all the landmarks? And I can help keep Sanga from causing trouble.”

“...hey…”

Ashivon butted her affectionately. “You do run off and start things you can’t always finish,  _ Trahveshurish.” _

Sanga grinned. At least the trouble she caused wasn’t nearly like the kind of trouble she got into in Divinity. “I don’t cause  _ much _ permanent damage,” she protested, butting him back.

The adults around them looked into each others’ eyes and made a unanimous decision - keep this little family together  _ and _ protected. They would have armour and weapons for the battle, to keep them safer, but if all went well, they wouldn’t be near the fighting at all.

War, however, never went well.

All the training, planning, and clever devices crafted could never fully prepare for the inevitable.

_ No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy. _

Divinity rested on a cliffside, with a river providing both fresh water and sanitation. Its terraced gardens could theoretically feed the inhabitants for months if it came to a siege. The high walls, in combination with the cliff faces on two sides, discouraged attack. A third side had a scree slope that, though easy to descend in a panicked flight, was harder to surmount with siege weaponry, soldiers, or cavalry.

They had not counted on a very small agent of chaos unearthing an ancient tome of forgotten lore and, with Ashivon’s help, unriddling the symbols of magic so that they could work.

They had definitely not counted on someone like Sanga being able to teach these techniques to anyone willing to listen.

They surely didn’t count on one of the ‘demons’ they had captured turning against them and using quick-witted logic and clever strategies to disable all but the most paranoid of defensive strategies.

“Beware of the ones with this symbol,” Ashivon drew it in the dirt so Hratsek couldn’t see. “They can use Hratsek’s wrist mark to make him do whatever they want. Cut those first.”

“They need to see Hratsek,” added Sanga. “So don’t let them.”

He was, they had to admit, a mountain of a man. Even in full armour, he was huge. With the bowed way he held himself and the very distinctive walk that came from years of being hauled around by his handlers, the people of Divinity might just be able to pick him out of a crowd.

“Cut the mark,” said Hratsek, who had been staring at the map for far too long. He offered the wrist and repeated. “Cut the mark. Sanga heal.”

Sanga whimpered at the thought. “You’ve been hurt enough, Tsahvo…”

He showed the Executioner mark on his arm. “Very bad,” he said. “Take… choice. Want choice.”

_ “Have _ choice,” Sanga insisted. “You have been making choices all the time in Devan-Intseh. Remember?”

“Want all choices,” said Hratsek. “Sanga… my baby… Do not look?”

She was shaking her head, her eyes leaking. “Hratsek… Tsahvo. Please… no?”

Hratsek hunkered down to meet her eyes on her level. Rested a gentle hand on her tear-streaked cheek. He thought through his next words with care and earnestly insisted, “I never want  _ them _ to control me ever again.”

Those were the most words he had spoken in a row since serious efforts at rehabilitation had begun. Sanga squeezed her eyes shut and put her hands over them “Do it quick.”

He didn’t even make a noise as he ruptured the mark on his arm. There was a crackling energy from it that briefly ran all over him. “Sanga. Heal cut.”

She was glowing before he had finished saying her name. Reaching out before he finished talking. The injury was sealed before she could touch him.

Hratsek welcomed her into his arms. “No want Sanga cry.”

“No want Tsahvo hurt,” she said, hugging him tight.

Ashivon, watching all this drama, whispered into his mother’s ear, “They know we’re headed into war, right?”

She just hushed him.

They had a surprise, now. However many of the Divinity followers bore the Controller mark, they would find their magic ineffective.

Ashivon comforted his best friend, and asked Hratsek, “Did those lightnings hurt?”

“Not as bad,” said the old man after some consideration.

Some of the Intseh troops were ready healers. Some were more adept at other magics than others. For their attack plan, they had the plant-shapers and some vines. They would go over the walls on the side of the scree slope, mostly because Divinity never expected an attack there. Even the watch towers weren’t positioned anywhere near the scree slope.

With the vines to climb up, the Intseh troops would be inside whilst the siege weapons would be a diversion outside some of the other walls.

Sanga would be with the teams climbing the vines, and would therefore have to wait until the siege engines finished assembling where Divinity could see them emerging from the nearby forest.

They camped, and Sanga was happy to point out the edible things in the forest around them while they waited.

Two days passed in patient anxiety and then… horns and bells. The siege weapons had caused alarm in Divinity. It was time to move.

Hratsek carried Sanga on his back, just as Ashivon’s mother carried him on her back. The vines shot up in flares of glowing energy, stabilising scree and forming a near silent lattice up the stone walls. As the troops ascended the scree slope, they could see torches and lanterns rushing to the gates. The Intseh moved in darkness, able to see by the thinner light of the moon.

The crawl up the slope became a climb up the vines, then a descent by way of the rooftops to the streets. The Intseh had a natural advantage with their padded peets and crept into position as quiet as cats. Many along the wall. Some into the streets. Their goal was to eliminate the soldiers of Divinity and winnow the innocent from the guilty by way of killing those who attacked in anger.

That way, the plan went, there would only be the more passive citizens left.

No plan  _ ever _ survives first contact with the enemy.

Sanga was pointing the way from her perch on Hratsek’s shoulders when someone running through the streets spied them and halted in their tracks. Sanga recognised the girl from her own days in the orphanage and waved. She made a sign to be quiet but the girl, as evidenced by her badly-shorn head, she did not listen well to others.

_ “Sanga! Is that THUNDER MOUNTAIN?” _

Hratsek murmured, “Hush, little child…”

_ “HEY HEY HEY IT’S THUNDER MOUNTAIN! THUNDER MOUNTAIN IS BACK FROM THE DEAD!” _

Ashivon sighed as the rest of their particular infiltration group came out of the shadows to kindly restrain the child. Thereafter… it all went to manure.

_ “Demons! DEMONS! DEEEEMOOOONNNNNS!” _

Sanga did try, shushing her friend and holding her gently and trying to tell her it was all right. It was already too late. People were peeking out of their windows. People were screaming. People were running for the security of the Divinity guard. Which were all finding Insteh coming up and attacking in very specific ways, slicing through the Divinity symbols on their chests in a quick and efficient manner.

People were shrieking for help from the gods, for help from the Divinity guard, for help from anyone at all. It was chaos and screaming and Hratsek held Sanga in one arm and her friend Auris in the other. He could not sweep up any more children into his arms and he was clearly bothered by that. Sanga spent half of her time trying to calm him and the other half trying to calm her friend.

_ “Auris, Auris. Sshh… It’s all right,” _ she said in Nital. Sanga flipped to Hratsekian.  _ “Hey, Tsahvo… Breathe, now. The children will be safe. It is going to be well. You have these two. That is enough.” _

Ashivon said, “We have to save their captive. The baby in the cellar. Come on, Tsahvo. Sanga? Point him the right way to find the underground?”

Sanga said,  _ “Let’s find the kittens, Tsahvo,” _ in Hratsekian, pointing down the streets she knew well.

Hratsek made short work of the wooden doors in his way. He tucked Sanga into the arm holding Auris and just… punched the doors off their hinges. The team with them were ready for almost anything, including having their own weapons of light summoned and ready for any battle.

They did not find much in the way of a fight. Those who were in the underground complexes of Divinity were using them as shelter for the emerging battle. Huddling families or clusters of Divinity orphans and foundlings cowered in corners. Some cringed amongst the piles of the dead. The Intseh marched past them. They had other concerns. Like the last captive that Divinity would take before the entire city and the cult within it was destroyed.

Hratsek had more shivers than Ashivon when they reached the tunnels where he had spent most of his life. Ashivon also remembered them as a bad place, and had to cling tighter to his mother as they made their way through his nightmares. There were no families and no children in the halls where the Intseh were kept. They stayed away from the cages where an Intseh child huddled in the same loose pants that Hratsek used to wear.

“Intseh!” The child leaped up and headed for the bars. “There’s something bad with the bars! They burn!”

One of the team summoned a blade with their blackwood handle and sliced through the bars. They literally fell apart and fizzled out. The young one inside leaped out and into the arms of a relative stranger. He had been here long enough to not care whose arms they were, so long as they were Intseh.

Ashivon could relate.

Auris, held fast in Hratsek’s arms, said,  _ “Oh. They’re a family?” _

_ “Almost,” _ said Sanga.  _ “They want to take him back to his family.” _

Hratsek called to the cats, and like some nursery tale, a veritable living carpet of felines emerged from nooks and crannies throughout the dark corners of the cells.

“Babies,” said the old man. “My babies.”

There were, as it turned out,  _ too many _ babies. Human. Feline. There were more children without families than Ashivon could fathom. More cats than seemed possible.

Auris seemed delighted to learn that Intseh could purr.  _ “He’s like a big kitty!” _

Hratsek said, “Mrrrau?”

Emboldened, Auris reached out to pet Hratsek’s face.  _ “Oh. He’s so soft…” _

Sanga explained to the orphaned and abandoned children that the Intseh were not demons, just different-shaped people, and they had a great love of babies. If anyone wanted a home, the Intseh would give them one.

Sanga was proof. She had once been the same height and weight as Auris, to the point where many thought they were fraternal twins. After a month or two in Devan-Intseh -with proper nutrition, exercise, and lavish care- Sanga was head and shoulders above her friend. She had good clothes on and the obvious, doting attention of Hratsek. They could believe every word she had to say.

Many were nervous, but the Intseh troops were kinder and gentler than any Divinity nun or priest.

Those who remained in Divinity had the choice to not remain there any longer. Many of them, now without the hierarchy to fear, chose to take that option.

There was plenty of countryside to go around, and the knowledge that the worst had already happened was strangely fortifying. Divinity would be little more than ruins in less than a handful of years.


	11. Beginning Again

Devan-Intseh was growing. There was a new settlement on the mainland side of the water, families made larger with their human wards. Both the new settlement and the original islands had flocks of cats. Many of them were more at home with the Intseh than the humans.

There was a lot more laughter. Human children and Intseh kits alike played together in the streets.

Today, Sanga was in the new settlement to visit her friend Auris. She was fitting in with her new family, and the news had come that she had a new baby sibling. Hratsek, upon the mention of the word ‘baby’ had gone overboard big time. He had a box full of baby toys and some supplies that included diapers and blankets and small clothing items.

Sanga had made a mobile out of stuff she had found while beachcombing, and it clattered as she carried it towards Auris’ new home.

Auris had changed, too. Love, understanding, and a set of carers who actually  _ cared _ had made a world of difference on her, too. She smiled and waved and jumped in place.

Sanga shrieked and started running.

“Little one,” sighed Hratsek. “We have all day for this. We can even use tomorrow.”

His plea for patience fell on ears already full of girlish squealing. He caught up with the bouncing humans and greeted the busy parents. They were tired, of course, as any new parents would be tired, but this exhaustion had an extra edge to it thanks to the human already in the household.

“I have things,” he said. “Baby things.”

“Thank you, Edehvohnish, do come in. See our new life. Meet our Sinale.”

Hratsek gained the sensation that they were just fine with not having the human girls in the house, right now. He let the parents direct him as to where to put the box.

There, in a padded nest of a bed, was a squinting, wriggling form. Wobbling to hold their head up and sniffing at the air. All their hair was a fine down and their limbs were sprawled on the concave mattress. Even their tail was limp.

“Baby,” Hratsek cooed. He tentatively reached for the wobbling fuzzy head.

Softer than a newborn kitten.

The proud parents scooped up their new kit and helped him hold the baby. Let him freeze in awe and wonder as the world’s smallest Intseh hand grasped the tip of his finger.

Tiny hands. Tiny claws. It was enough to make him weep with joy.

“Hello Sinale…” he cooed.

The girls were coming in, Auris leading Sanga by the hand. They both fell to whispers and stood on tip-toes as Hratsek hunkered down so they could see.

“This is my baby sister, Sinale,” whispered Auris. “I’m gonna protect her from anything bad in the world.”

Sanga ran careful fingers over Sinale’s leg. “Hello, baby. Hello Sinale.” She turned to Auris. “Do you want cats? Miau had another litter.”

“There’s enough cats, thanks,” laughed Auris. “I got a sister to look after, so I can’t look after kittens.”

“Oh. Aw. Okay.” Sanga spent an entire minute petting Sinale. “Tsahvo…”

“Yes, Efafa?”

“When’m  _ I _ gonna get a baby sibling?”

END!


End file.
